XXX. out; nor do the subsequent massacres in the provinces appear to CHAP. have preceded the orders to commit them; nor did the French hierarchy make any active effort to counteract them. Indeed, so far was their powerful body from branding these murders with the moral infamy which is their proper characteristic, that we find the Parisian clergy, eleven years afterwards, celebrating the day and the occasion; for, on 25th August 1583, William Cecil wrote to his grandfather, lord Burghley, from Paris, Upon St. Bartholomew's day we had here SOLEMN PROCESSIONS and other tokens of triumphs and joy in remembrance of the slaughter committed this time eleven years past. But I doubt they will not so triumph at the day of judgment.' Ellis, second Series, v. 3. p. 23. Pius V. who, from his letters cited in our 27th Chapter, we may infer would have been enraptured by it, lost the gratification by dying in the preceding May. But his successor, Gregory XIII. succeeded him also in such feelings, for he went in solemn procession to a church in Rome, to return thanks for it, and sent a nuncio to France to congratulate the king; fired the cannon at St. Angelo, and had bonfires over all Rome, in joyful celebration of it. He did more. He was so delighted, that he had three pictures painted of it, to be placed in the Vatican, in the apartment called La Salle des Rois, which precedes the Sextine chapel, and which are still there. The first represents the shooting of the admiral: the second the general massacre; the third Charles avowing the deed before the parliament of Paris. I state this on the authority of De Potter, in his Introduction Historique to the letters of Pius V.; who has prefixed to his book an engraving of the second, which represents in one corner the throwing out the admiral's body, and, strange to say, exhibits three females as about to be cut down among the other sufferers. How either painter or pope could be gratified by the butchery of women, I cannot understand. I must leave it to those who have inspected this Salle des Rois, to judge whether such a picture is there now, or ever has been. I cannot verify it myself from personal inspection, as I never visited Rome. If De Potter has stated a falsehood, I shall eagerly strike out the fact which I have quoted from him. He has also published, p. 156, a medal, struck by Gregory XIII. on the occasion. Its reverse is the portrait of the pope himself, with his name. On the other side is an exterminating angel, with the motto, Ugonottorum strages,' thrusting a sword with II. BOOK mother, had been of the party; that ill luck had so made it fall out, that Maurival had failed in his blow; and that the Huguenots were become so desperate from it, that, not confining themselves to M. de Guise, but involving also the queen and his brother, and thinking likewise that he had consented to it, they meant that very night to have recourse to arms; so that his majesty was in very great danger, either from the Catholics on account of M. de Guise, or from the Huguenots, for the reasons above mentioned. The king, seeing how he was circumstanced, and who had always been obedient to his mother, took soudain resolution to join himself with her, and to conform to her will, and to preserve his person from the Huguenots thro the Catholics; yet with an extreme regret that he could not save Teligny la Noue and M. de la Rochefoucault. Then, going to the queen his mother, he sent for M. de Guise and all the other princes and Catholic captains, where the resolution was taken to make the massacre that night. Messieurs de Guise, fearing that the Huguenots would have justice done, se suchetans tous à l'oreille.' Mem. ib. 178, 9. As the substance of this simple narrative corresponds with the conclusions which I had been led to from the other documents, I am inclined to believe it to be the nearest representation of the truth as to Charles, in this melancholy affair, that has been left to us. Tho I have no doubt that the villany had been fully concerted between Anjou and the Guises, and made known to the queen mother, and adopted by her soon after the admiral was found to be recovering, and his friends demanding justice. The intimations of Beza in favor of the parties to the assassi nation are important, because he was a zealous friend of the victims; and tho he states the duke of Guise and his brothers to have pursued Montgomery and his friends for eight leagues beyond Paris; yet he admits that, as if their rage had been appeased by destroying the admiral, they saved many of the Huguenots even by taking them into their own houses. p. 63.— As if the atrocity had distinct sets of authors and objects; and therefore that the general massacre was an additional barbarity annexed to the preceding, on the sound of the tocsin, to gratify those whose worldly interests were intended to be promoted by it, and from whom it may have originated; for, if we except from it the king, Spain, and the duke of Guise, there is but one remaining party to whom it is attributable; for the Parisian mob do not seem to have meddled with it, until the tocsin called them out; nor do the subsequent massacres in the provinces appear to CHAP. XXX. have preceded the orders to commit them; nor did the French hierarchy make any active effort to counteract them. Indeed, so far was their powerful body from branding these murders with the moral infamy which is their proper characteristic, that we find the Parisian clergy, eleven years afterwards, celebrating the day and the occasion; for, on 25th August 1583, William Cecil wrote to his grandfather, lord Burghley, from Paris, Upon St. Bartholomew's day we had here SOLEMN PROCESSIONS and other tokens of triumphs and joy in remembrance of the slaughter committed this time eleven years past. But I doubt they will not so triumph at the day of judgment.' Ellis, second Series, v. 3. p. 23. Pius V. who, from his letters cited in our 27th Chapter, we may infer would have been enraptured by it, lost the gratification by dying in the preceding May. But his successor, Gregory XIII. succeeded him also in such feelings, for he went in solemn procession to a church in Rome, to return thanks for it, and sent a nuncio to France to congratulate the king; fired the cannon at St. Angelo, and had bonfires over all Rome, in joyful celebration of it. He did more. He was so delighted, that he had three pictures painted of it, to be placed in the Vatican, in the apartment called La Salle des Rois, which precedes the Sextine chapel, and which are still there. The first represents the shooting of the admiral: the second the general massacre; the third Charles avowing the deed before the parliament of Paris. I state this on the authority of De Potter, in his Introduction Historique to the letters of Pius V.; who has prefixed to his book an engraving of the second, which represents in one corner the throwing out the admiral's body, and, strange to say, exhibits three females as about to be cut down among the other sufferers. How either painter or pope could be gratified by the butchery of women, I cannot understand. I must leave it to those who have inspected this Salle des Rois, to judge whether such a picture is there now, or ever has been. I cannot verify it myself from personal inspection, as I never visited Rome. If De Potter has stated a falsehood, I shall eagerly strike out the fact which I have quoted from him. He has also published, p. 156, a medal, struck by Gregory XIII. on the occasion. Its reverse is the portrait of the pope himself, with his name. On the other side is an exterminating angel, Ugonottorum strages,' thrusting a sword with with the motto, BOOK one hand, and holding a cross in the other, with a dead body before him, and men and women flying from him. This De Potter has taken from the jesuit Bonanni's Numismata Pontif. Rom. published at Rome 1699. The jesuit remarks, that by this medal Gregory taught [docuit] eam stragem perpetratam esse non sine Dei ope, divinoque consilio. He also states, that the pope sent the cardinal Orsini to urge Charles IX. to go on in the same track, and not to spoil what he had done by intermingling lenity. Ut cæptis insistat fortiter; neque curam asperis remediis inchoatam prospere, perdat leniora miscendo.' Bon. v. 1. p. 323; 336. N° xxvii. De Potter's Introd. p. xxiii. xxiv. 6 Four months afterwards, on 28th December, Gregory heard and allowed Muretus to address to him, in an elaborate oration, a bombastic panegyric on this execrable day, in which he mentions this trait of the worthy pontiff: O! that day, full of hilarity and joy; in which you, most blessed father! on this news being brought to you, went on foot to give thanks to heaven, and to Louis, the sainted king, in whose dominions the deed was done, and to offer the appointed supplications. What news more desirable [optabilior] could have been brought to you?' Mureti Opera, v. 1. p. 195. ed. 1727. We also read in the Memoirs of Gaspar de Tavannes, who assisted in the murders, this singular passage: The admiral was hung up at Montfaucon by the feet; HIS HEAD WAS SENT TO ROME; general processions were made.' Mem. G. de Tavannes, v. 27. p. 275. The words are explicit, 'Sa tête envoyée à Rome.' Why sent to Rome? I know no one but the Turks who can now inform us. They are or were in the habit of sending to their sultan the heads of those persons whose deaths he has ordered, or of particular enemies, whose lifeless features he would be glad to see. The reader must judge for himself why such a ghastly present was transmitted to the papal city, and also to whom there it was commissioned We may be sure that it was not sent to give pain, nor to excite displeasure for its decapitation. The duc de Sully mentions, that two priests came to murder him, tho but a boy, and that he was with difficulty saved from them by a denial of his being there. He was locked up three days in a chest by his protecting friend, to keep him concealed while the murders were continuing. It is remarkable that the Spanish ambassador and the papal nuncio were busy in their consultations in the month after these horrors; as we have noticed them to have been co operating together, in the period which preceded them; and what deserves our particular observation is, that the state councils of Paris were carried on apart from the king. The important dispatch of Walsingham, of 24th September 1572, gives us this most remarkable paragraph:- The king, queen-mother, and monsieur, have their council apart. But first, BEFORE things are communicated unto the king, they are debated between the queen-mother and monsieur; the duke of Nevers, and Tavannes. The duke of Nevers hath well nigh DAILY CONFERENCES with the prince, THE NUNCIO, the ambassador of Spain, and the extraordinary ambassador of Venice; and WHAT THEY TREAT IS KEPT MOST SECRET; and for mine own part I am now divided from all means to discover any thing.' Digges, 258. So on 8th October we read again, There is here almost daily conference between the pope's nuncio, the ambassador of Spain, and them here, and their councils.' ib. 268. Were these consultations every day held in order to mitigate the evil? The same dispatch of the 24th September, tho written a month after the massacre, adds, The marshal de Cosse hath commission sent him to execute as many of the religion within his charge, as have been known in these late wars to have served the princes, and borne charges.' ib. Digges, 258. On 25th September, Burghley wrote, On Thursday sevennight there was a general slaughter made at Rouen of all that could be imagined Protestants, so as the very channels of the street did run blood.' Digges, 264. These facts imply the nature of the conferences at Paris. So does the following one from Walsingham on 8th October: To gratify the king of Spain, those 800 that came from Mons were put to the sword.' ib. p. 269. His next letter still more strongly marks the character of the Parisian consultations. He wrote from the French metropolis to Burghley, tho above six weeks after St. Bartholomew's day: They are here so far imbrued in blood as there is no end of their cruelty; for no town escapeth where any of the religion is found, without general murthering and sacking of them. And yet they protest all this to be done against their will, tho it be evidently known that it is done by their commandment.' ib. 269. We are also informed, that M. Grandimont hath commission from the king to suppress all preaching in Berry, and to plant there the Catholic religion.' p. 267. These facts shew the character of the councils then at the Louvre. The assertion of Sully is not less expressive: CHAP. XXX. |